Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR)
Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency is a Palestinian art and architecture collective and a residency program based in Beit Sahour, Palestine. Organized by architects Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, and Eyal Weizman, DAAR examines the possible re-usage of existing architecture in occupied territories–a process they refer to as “Revolving Door Occupancy.” In 2006, the Israeli army evacuated […]
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen
As organizers of Complaints Choir, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen have heard it all: “My dreams are boring.” “My grandmother is a racist.” “My neighbor organizes Hungarian folk dances above my bedroom.” “I am fat and lazy and half-old.” Since 2005, the artists, who live in Helsinki, Finland, have invited people to sing their gripes […]
Chto Delat? (What is to be done?)
On the 100th anniversary of the first Russian Revolution, collective Chto Delat? (What is to Be Done?) organized activists in protest of contemporary labor inequities on the square at Narva Gate in St. Petersburg, the site of the original uprising in 1905. In this contemporary staging, Chto Delat? invited low-income workers who normally wear sandwich […]
Lara Almarcegui and Begoña Movellán
A national highway runs through Fuentes de Ebro, yet the small, ordinary Spanish village rarely receives visitors. In order to draw attention to the area, Lara Almarcegui and Begoña Movellán converted the local train station, which had been abandoned for 20 years, into a free hotel for one week. “The town is not beautiful, and […]
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla placed 12 five-foot columns of chalk in public squares in Lima, Paris, and New York, ephemeral public monuments that would crumble and dissolve over time into smaller pieces and pools of liquid. The artists then invited people to use the fallen pieces of chalk to write messages on the ground, […]
Curator Statement
In this first decade of the 21st century, a critical mass of activism has emerged. Likewise, socially engaged art is on the rise, shaking up foundations of art discourse, and sharing techniques and intentions with fields far beyond the arts. But unlike its avant-garde predecessors such as Constructivism, Futurism, or Dadaism, socially engaged art is […]
